Are these ideas the future of affordable housing? | ABC News

[Music] I don't know about you but housing seems pretty expensive to me right now sure there are ups and downs but since the early eighties house prices have gone up more sharply than wages and that means if you're struggling to pay your rent or maybe you're battling to get into the housing market you're not alone but it's not all doom and gloom some people are coming up with some pretty creative ways of getting into the market building cheaply splitting costs with other people so we're gonna have a look at how they did it [Music] and ruku is an architect he's worked as a tour guide and he loves to travel and a few years ago he decided he'd like to build a house without giving up his travelling lifestyle I didn't need or didn't want a large house just wanted something that was well designed efficient the aim was to build the house for less than $70,000 yep you heard me seventy thousand dollars so how do you do that well Andrew hired a local builder but he did a lot of the unskilled work on-site himself he also cut costs by using local timber from the site using recycled bricks and getting seconds and off cuts for the roof he roped in some family help with painting and most importantly he was building a small house I mean every square meter costs money so if you can save doing space it you don't need that it saves money as well Andrew made some design decisions that pushed up the building cost in the end Andrew spent one hundred and three thousand dollars on the build and 30 thousand on services add in the 75 thousand he spent on the land a few years earlier and the total cost of the home was less than two hundred and ten thousand dollars but I think something like this is similar size or similar design would be appropriate for many singles or couples and likewise could use as an ancillary unit or a granny flat Michael Fotheringham is kind of an expert when it comes to affordable housing he reckons there are a few factors making housing less affordable than 30 years ago including wages not keeping up with property prices more housing being brought up by mum and dad investors and other cost of living increases such as energy and transport governments are doing what they can at federal and state level and increasingly at local government level but at the same time we're seeing really creative approaches from individuals responding to a challenging system it turns out there are a few people building houses on the cheek after her relationship ended Emma Honan realized she was going to have to rent out her house to cover the mortgage so she sent herself what seems like a kind of impossible task build a second home on her property for herself and her two children for $100,000 in just 12 weeks so I drew up the house plans and and and then had them drafted up for the Builder Emma kept her costs low by doing her own simple design and project management doing a lot of unskilled labor herself enlisting some help from friends and using mostly secondhand materials there was a house it was being demolished just in the next suburb and there was an ad in the paper saying that all the materials from their house were available for $3,000 that was a bargain price for $15,000 worth of floorboards where the boards and windows they just got delivered here and then we just spent weeks and weeks preparing them D nailing them stripping the paint off getting them ready for the carp and ISM to use so what was the total cost $100,000 including fees and approvals and the total time 12 weeks and Emma thinks anyone can do it as long as the design is simple and a lot of the materials are recycled I mean I made a few a few things a few mistakes that I would do differently but not many overall I'm yeah I'm really happy it's a great space but what if you can't afford to buy or kind of what to build by yourself well not everyone's going it alone [Music] sisters Lynne Sugden and Julie Newby have joined forces to find a nice place they can retire to without the big bill we bought a block she had two old cottages on it and that's how it all started the sisters are cutting costs by building a duplex expanding on the existing cottages it's saving the sisters money because it's a single dwelling and Julian lien sharing rates sharing bins sharing bills and getting Julie's son to build the homes if we're having an argument about who's going to plant what plant in our garden at the back will we have our own separate parts to go to so we don't outcome that much yeah we get on pretty well and whoever out there wants to do this I think that they should just get together and work it out and just go for it sometimes it's the cost of land that is the biggest hurdle to affordable housing so what if you could buy the house and not have to pay for the expensive land underneath [Music] Sint Clements in Mile End is London's first Community Land Trust site helping 23 local families stay in a part of town that's getting more and more expensive Nayak Mackey and her partner moved to East London when it wasn't so trendy but 17 years down the track they needed a bigger home and they found they'd been priced out so we were stuck completely stuck in a small two-bedroom growing family yeah the needs were not met and we couldn't move it was impossible for us to move Naya came across a Community Land Trust being proposed in their area st. Clements community land Trust's or CLTS have been pretty successful in the u.s. people buy the house rather than the land that's owned by a cooperative or not-for-profit which is usually lobbied a council or another Authority for it so the CLT home as a principle is built on free land so this immediately removes a huge amount of the cost to the buyer because you don't pay for the land thus in Clements home prices are tied to the area's average income which makes them about a third of the local market value CLT homes are about creating affordable living not investment opportunities because when owners decide to sell they need to apply the same pricing formula we very much know and we have accepted and we have endorsed that when we sell our seal tea home we won't make any money so could community land Trust's work in Australia well technically yes and this means a pretty extensive research done dr. Louise Crabtree has helped write the manual literally looking at some of the legal considerations and how organizations that are here can go about setting up community land Trust's and articulating that relationship between the organization and the resident it's tricky in Australia to separate land and buildings and there are no Community Land Trust housing projects here yet but Louise Crabtree thinks that will soon change with similar models focused on permanent affordability we are seeing an uptake or an uptick in interest here in Australia I think because of those challenges that I mentioned before around the ongoing problems with housing costs and people's concerns with building quality not everyone wants to own a home but even the cost of renting has gone up over the past couple of decades but there are some innovative solutions being tried by people who are willing to think outside the box [Music] Mirinda cocoa housing is a housing cooperative Kate Grant has lived there for about eight years for both social and financial reasons I'd been quite low-income and it was a way of getting out of the private rental market with all the uncertainties and insecurities of that coops are popular in North America as an alternative to private rentals the tenants are members or shareholders in the organization that owns the property and we are the treasurer's and the the the landlords as well as the tenants here so all the members are responsible for running the whole co-op collecting the rent for Kate and the other tenants the coop model means their rent is based on income tenants are on a 99-year lease and anyone who gets behind in their rent can work out a payment plan what it means in simple terms is when your income goes up so does your rent when your income goes down so does your rent there's a minimum and a maximum so that people know what they're in for Mirinda co-tenants have their own units but they're expected to share their time prepping shared meals and doing maintenance Rachel low enjoys the lack of financial stress as well as the sense of community but coops aren't for everyone it takes people who have patience but a sense of humor and beyond a sense of humor compassion [Music] in the u.s. some young people aren't paying any rent almost 10 years ago a student housing shortage in Cleveland prompted a novel idea judson retirement community opened its doors to college students nina qicang is one of three music students living there for free in exchange for performing recitals a few times a year Vanina the benefits are clear she's getting free rent a huge space to herself and plenty of room to practice so in my old place I was living with two other musicians and we got quite a few complaints that year we got a lot of angry letters too loud naina thinks it's a win-win with residents getting to enjoy music and friendship with the younger generation it is a big commitment on both sides but I think it's totally worth it I can't imagine living anywhere else after this so when it comes to affordable housing yes governments and Industry make a lot of the big decisions but as you can see at least some creative individuals are successfully cutting costs I mean their ideas might not be for everyone but it's something to think about you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 344,111

Keywords: news, abc, abc news, australia, housing, solutions, co-housing, cheap builds, home build, builders, community housing, affordable housing, solutions journalism, community land trust, CLT, housing research, housing co-op, housing cooperative, rental market, housing market, tiny home

Id: 1GyFKTzNz8k

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Ok so people have pointed out how "tiny houses" don't address the real issue, won't re litigate.

The flaw, that the video doesn't even mention is how do you get free land? And if the price is based on a formula how do you deal with more demand than supply? Me thinks the unstated harsh truth is that these don't scale up, they're only "viable" when soemthing is pumping money in .

On the housing co-op the finances don't make sense, are people happy to be paying way more for their unit then it's worth? Because that's how you offset people who pay less. Either that or again this functions only because there's free money flowing.

Really low quality video TBH, there's no examination of any substance or links for more information.